Tur­key could ex­tend emer­gency, Er­do­gan warns EU

PRES­I­DENT Re­cep Tayyip Er­do­gan warned the Euro­pean Union that Tur­key could ex­tend by three months a state of emer­gency that has been in place since the failed July coup.

In a speech in Istanbul, Mr Er­do­gan launched another sting­ing at­tack on the EU af­ter the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment voted to back a freeze in ac­ces­sion talks with Ankara.

He again threat­ened to bring back the death penalty – a de­ci­sion that would ef­fec­tively end Ankara’s long­stand­ing bid – and said that on this he would lis­ten to the Turk­ish peo­ple and not “Hans” and “Ge­orge”, pick­ing out two com­mon Euro­pean names.

The state of emer­gency im­posed af­ter the July 15 failed coup bid has seen at least 37,000 peo­ple ar­rested, caus­ing alarm in Brus­sels over the scale of the crack­down.

“This is a de­ci­sion for the gov­ern­ment. What’s it to you?” he told the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment.

“Is the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment in charge of this coun­try or is the gov­ern­ment in charge of this coun­try?”

“Know your place!” he added, in an an­gry tirade.

He noted that France had also put in place a state of emer­gency af­ter it was hit by a string of Is­lamist at­tacks in 2015 and ac­cused the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment of hypocrisy.

“Are you not aware that you are aid­ing and abet­ting ter­ror­ism?” he told the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment.

Tur­key has once re­newed the three­month state of emer­gency put in place in the wake of the July 15 coup. It would need to be re­newed again in Jan­uary.

Mr Er­do­gan had ear­lier rat­tled the Euro­pean Union by threat­en­ing to tear up an agree­ment that has sub­stan­tially re­duced the flow of il­le­gal mi­grants to Europe this year.

In his lat­est speech, he again threat­ened to sign into law any bill voted by par­lia­ment to bring back cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, whose abo­li­tion is a key con­di­tion of EU mem­ber­ship.

“I am not go­ing to take a de­ci­sion based on what Hans says, or what Ge­orge says,” he said.